Posts Tagged ‘natural disasters’

This map of Cleveland shows six concentric circles, which the city’s mayor wants to reduce to a more manageable three by 2016.

CLEVELAND – With the east coast still in the grips of an 800-mile-wide Frankenstorm, our nation was dealt a further blow tonight when Cleveland, Ohio suffered a Dracuquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale. The extent of the damage is not yet known, but authorities are hoping the quake will be killed when the sun rises tomorrow morning.

At a televised press conference that concluded a short time ago, Cleveland mayor Jonathan Harker implored residents to stay out of damaged buildings and to wait calmly for Red Cross personnel to deliver “food, blankets, water, and garlic.”

It is not known what effect a red cross with arms of equal length will have on the Dracuquake.

Harker also advised Clevelanders to tune into The Weather Channel for further updates. “I know this is more of a geological event than a metrological one,” the mayor said, “but I get kickbacks every time I mention them and need money for attack ads.”

“A Dracuquake is too weather,” she said. “If it happens outside, it’s weather. Well, a football game isn’t weather I suppose, but we’re not a sports channel, so I can’t comment on that.”

When asked for a response both to the mayor’s comments and Drench’s subsequent response, meteorologist and frequent Anvil contributor Pinky Middleton said he didn’t know why those who study weather are called meteorologists.

“I got into this [expletive deleted] to look at space rocks,” he explained. “Excuse me for using logic. I guess I should have signed up for ‘cloudology.’ I’d probably be on my way to the asteroid belt right now with a fat NASA paycheck, a badass spacesuit, and more chicks than I can handle.”

Middleton did warn east coasters to be on the lookout for Were-nados, which are often spawned by Frankenstorms.

“Those things can get pretty hairy,” he said.

In other natural disaster-related news, scientists in Washington State are currently monitoring seismic activity at Mount St. Helens, site of a massive explosion in 1980 that destroyed hundreds of homes and leveled miles of forest. No one from the Weather Channel was willing to comment, but sources say experts fear a Creature From the Black Lagooncanic eruption on the magnitude of the Mount Pinatubo blast that rocked the Philippines in 1991.

For hack artists, lightning bolts are the easiest weather phenomenon to draw

SILVER SPRING, MD – Meteorologists at the National Weather Service made a startling prediction today that, if true, will have far-reaching effects on global economic development, transportation, and modern lifestyle. Their claim?

By 2115, the world may run out of weather.

Speaking to reporters at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headquarters in Silver Spring, agency director Wendy Day said, “The rate at which modern humans are using weather cannot be sustained. Rain Tuesday and Wednesday, sun on Thursday, windy and cold on Friday… it’s irresponsible to say the least.”

Day also pointed out that, if people need an idea of what life would be like without weather, we need look no further than to our nearest neighbor in the sky, the moon, which is devoid of weather.

“Why do you think no one goes there anymore?” she said. “It sucks.”

Conservatives around the country rejoiced at the news.

“So I guess without weather, there’s no global warming,” Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann said in an interview that aired on Cartoon Network earlier tonight. “American colonists fought the British in Vietnam so we could be free of environmental regulations. Finally, 2000 years later, the victory is complete.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has devoted his energy to combating the alleged dangers of global warming in recent years, quickly called his own news conference following the NOAA prediction.

Speaking from his office in Nashville, Gore told reporters, “Global warming uses up weather faster than no global warming. You get extra weather now, no weather later. Not to be alarmist, but within 150 years, humans will be living as our cousins, the worms, do, crawling through the mud, blind and armless and legless, wallowing in our weatherless world of,” at which point everyone present drifted into a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.

When we awoke, he was gone.

Though some scientists dispute the NOAA findings, Zeus, the king of the gods, believes the prediction has merit.

“I’ve been tossing lightning bolts at the Earth for eons,” he told The Anvil via telephone. “Every time I reached into the pile, there were always more. Until the other day, when I looked and thought, hmmm, there’s maybe only a hundred years’ worth left.”

He added, “Which is just as well, since I’m going to need rotator cuff surgery at some point from all this bolt throwing.”

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Duke upset… what does it mean?

By Eric J Baker

DURHAM, UK – Sir Percival Pantywaist, the current Duke of Fluffington in Durham County, England, was upset yesterday when he spilled grape juice on his yellow velvet breeches, staining them.

Eyewitnesses said the Duke flitted his hands like a bird and stomped on the floor while shouting, “Oh crikey! It’s beastly I tell you. Just beastly!”

The velvet clothes worn by royal subjects in England are considered expensive and hard to replace when damaged, as they are often custom made.

WASHINGTON DC – NASA scientists said today that a massive asteroid strike could occur as early as next week.

“Apparently, the asteroid union has filed a grievance with Solar System, Inc. and says it will go on strike if unfair practices are not redressed,” NASA labor-relations expert Pinky Middleton told reporters earlier today. “We’re monitoring the situation carefully.”

Space Rock Local 124, the asteroid union that serves our solar system, claims that it is being forced to operate in an unsafe work environment. Union leaders say all they want are new orbital paths, not pay raises.

Union president Rocky Ele said in a statement released to the press this morning, “The planets whine and cry about the occasional collision. I suppose they whine and cry about bird feathers on their French doors too. Well, how do you think the bird feels?”

Talk of sending unmanned spacecraft into the solar system to destroy near-earth asteroids has some space rocks spooked. The asteroid Apophis, one of an estimated 45,000 large rocks orbiting the sun, told The Anvil he feels increasingly nervous going to work every day.

“I’m just trying to execute my trajectory,” he says. “But now they [Earthlings] want to blow me up, like I’m some kind of planet hunter. Hey, I never asked to be affected by Earth’s gravitational pull. Where’s the off switch on that thing?”

In a surprise move this week, the Obama administration cancelled funding for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, which monitors threats from space, claiming the cuts were necessary for the sake of trimming the budget deficit. That explanation did not stop some Republicans from crying foul.

In an interview that aired on CNN last night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We think it’s interesting that the President can suddenly make billions disappear from the budget when his labor union friends complain about some perceived injustice.”

Indeed, Space Rock Local 124 was one of the biggest contributors to the Obama campaign in 2008, and, with the Supreme Court having lessened restrictions on outside political donations in a recent ruling, the asteroids figure to be even bigger contributors to Democrats in 2012.

He later added, “Man, I’ve been wanting to say that to someone for the past two and a half years.”

No one is quite sure what will happen if the solar system’s asteroids all go on strike at once. Could thousands of no-longer-orbiting space boulders cause gravitational disturbances that ripple across the orbital path of the eight planets? Will the asteroids begin to collect and form a new planet between Mars and Jupiter that pulls the Earth farther from the sun, plunging our planet into a new, permanent ice age? Or, perhaps, could the moon simply be slammed into Earth at thousands of miles per second, destroying both worlds and ending life as we know it?”

“No,” says NASA’s Middleton. “None of those things will happen. Asteroids can’t stop moving through space, no more than Geico can stop running ads all day. A strike would be a symbolic gesture.”

That hasn’t stopped Russian Space Agency officials from launching the new deep space probe, Preparation H [the H is for Hydrogen Bomb], a warhead-tipped rocket that can be reprogrammed from Earth to hunt down specific targets that enter the inner solar system.

“We offer prompt, soothing relief from asteroids,” said former Cosmonaut Boris Blastikoff, now heading up the Motherland Defense division of the agency.

Union officials from United Comets Interplanetary local 84 were not willing to comment on this story.

FACEBOOK – FarmVille, the world’s most populous city, was struck by a devastating earthquake this afternoon measuring 11.9 on the Richter scale. Early reports estimate the death toll at twenty million, plus their friends, though that number is expected to rise.

Seismologists say the quake occurred at 4:50 p.m. EST, sending thousands of cows and pigs hurtling though the air and crushing their owners to death. Many others were swallowed up by churning blue soil. If the current victim count is accurate, the disaster will go on record as the deadliest in human history.

Donations are already pouring in from around the world, led by Facebook users who spend most of their time in FarmVille.

“I’ve been out of work for a year,” says Roweena Hotpepper, a long-time Facebook member, “but I sent my whole unemployment check. Those poor people need that money more than I do.”

Pinky Middleton, no stranger to unnatural disasters, said he plans to head to FarmVille tomorrow to help with the relief effort. “I was in Myspace when it got hit by the Exodus,” he says. “It’s a ghost town now. I don’t want that to happen to FarmVille.”

To understand the scope of destruction wrought by an 11.9 quake, we asked Dr. Cracky McShake, a seismologist from Detroit University Online, to explain.

“The Richter scale is really dumb,” he says. “Each decimal point higher is, like, a gajillion times worse than the one before. What use is that? It’s like getting paid ten bucks an hour, and your first raise is to a hundred bucks an hour. Then a thousand. How the hell are you supposed to work out your tax bracket?”

But what does that mean for the survivors of the FarmVille quake?

“Survivors?” McShake says with a laugh. “There aren’t any survivors. Do you have any idea what an eleven point nine quake is like? It’s like a house of cards getting hit by a hurricane. It’s like a model train village getting obliterated by a cluster bomb. It’s like your wife and kids disappointing you so very very badly that you have to chop them up with an axe and put their remains through a wood chipper, and then throw those remains into a bonfire. Then you move to Utah or Nebraska or somewhere and change your identity. Eventually you get some bogus position at a fake online university. But that doesn’t stop the voices. The voices that order you to kill and kill again and go on killing until the voices stop.”

He went on to say, “It’s like that.”

Scientists disagree on what caused today’s FarmVille quake. A few fringe members of the scientific community claim it was caused two adjacent tectonic plates slipping or pushing against each other. But most mainstream seismologists and geologists believe it was the result of an angry god punishing us.

Several deities have already claimed responsibility. God, CEO of the popular faith, Christianity, said through his spokesperson, Pat Robertson, “This is what all those people get for being heathens and engaging in bestiality and not voting Republican.”

No so fast, says the Norse god, Thor.

“Thor angry. Thor use hammer,” the son of Odin told The Anvil. “I say, ‘It’s hammer time’ and FarmVille crumbles.”

He added, “Can’t touch this.”

When reached at his home on Mount Olympus, Zeus, the king of the gods, said, “Of course I destroyed FarmVille. Probably. I’ve destroyed so many civilizations I don’t even know I’m doing it anymore.”

When informed that other deities were also claiming credit, the philandering overlord added, “Other gods? Look, I was God before god as a word. Don’t make me burn down another giant Jesus statue.”

Guinevere Stovepipe, 40, displays the four skulls and a jawbone that have landed in her yard this year

SMITHEREENS, IDAHO – Mary Jane Trouserpocket is like a lot of Americans. She lives in a ranch house in a small suburb. She drives a Honda. She has a husband and a crystal meth habit.

Unlike the rest of us, though, she has to live in constant fear of exploded debris falling on her head.

Mary Jane lives in Smithereens, Idaho, the destination of most ash and shrapnel produced by America’s biggest, least-expected explosions. She, like other residents of the town, has been forced to set up a canopy over her house and pay a local landscaping company to remove the gray powder from her driveway and yard once a week.

“It’s bad enough that the dusty bits get in my clothes,” she says, “but we’ve had some pretty big chunks come down. The people across the street lost two cars this year to falling metal. The insurance company won’t pay.”

After pausing to wipe away tears, Mary Jane adds, “We moved here from Timbuktu to get away from these kinds of problems.”

Scientists studying the phenomenon are at a loss to explain why so much detritus ends up in the town and surrounding hills. Steven Offal, a geologist from Detroit University Online, has been taking core samples for the past two weeks in the hopes of accomplishing something.

“These core samples are useless, as far as I can tell,” he says. “I have this cool core sampler thingamajig that the university paid a lot of money for, so I might as well use it.”

Offal is confident of one thing, however.

“There is going to be a massive explosion somewhere, and it is imminent. This town MUST be evacuated!”

Nonsense, says David Dross, the mayor of Smithereens and owner of the local saw mill. “The annual town fair is this weekend. Everyone is going to be there, and I will not cancel it. In fact, I’m going to have the sheriff, who’s also my brother, run that geologist out of town. Imagine, these fancy city folk coming in here and telling us how to manage our affairs.”

Will everyone in town really be at the fair? Don’t expect to see Mary Jane Trouserpocket there.

“I don’t want to be standing there eating cotton candy in the middle of a big, old field when all that flotsam comes raining down. I’m packing up the Honda tonight and clearing out.”

But where will she go? The nearest town, All Recognition, is 40 miles away, close enough to be considered the edge of the debris zone.

“No,” she says, “there’s another town beyond All Recognition. It’s called Burnt.”

Indeed, the people of Burnt seldom experience the bizarre phenomenon that regularly afflicts their neighbors in Smithereens, but records do show an inordinate amount of intense fires.

“I’ll take my chances,” says Mary Jane, as she loads two lidless, five-gallon containers of gasoline into the cargo area of her CRV and lights a cigarette. “I just don’t want run out of gas as I flee the falling debris.”